Nocturne
by Hinotorihime
Summary: As college students' lives go, Toris Laurinaitis has a pretty sucky one, what with balancing too many classes, an early-morning job, an obnoxious roommate, and way more family drama than he can afford medication for. The fact that his best friend is a ghost who insists on arranging Toris's life for him isn't helping, either. [AU. PolLiet, past LithBel. Happy Halloween, everyone!]


**Happy Halloween, everyone! I've been working on this all month, but it still feels really rushed in my opinion, so I will probably continue to do some major revising even after it's published. Be warned... Anyway, I've done psycho Liet and psycho Russia already, so let's do something a bit different :)**

 **Toris is a massive self-insert here. Any opinion he voices about his job is _my_ opinion - I work early-morning custodial at my university, and it's definitely not as bad as my last one but it still sucks.  
**

 **One more thing: Feliks calls Toris "Liet" here, even though they're not countries. Really, that's just because I'm used to writing them that way, but the in-story reason is that he found out that Toris's family is Lithuanian and thought the nickname would be hilarious. Because Feliks is like that.**

* * *

It wasn't that Alfred was a _bad_ roommate. He did his share of the chores, and was very generous about sharing groceries and the car, and it's not like Toris would be able to live anywhere else on nine dollars an hour so he was lucky, really. Alfred was a nice young man - exuberant, cheerful, and playful.

Yes, Toris liked his roommate well enough.

Just not at four-o'clock in the morning.

"And this is the Atrium," Alfred concluded, his voice echoing off of the walls. Toris nodded seriously, pushing back the lock of hair that fell into his face. "There's a drinking fountain and two garbage cans in here - it's easy to forget about them. Also make sure to wipe down the tables and straighten the chairs. Any questions?"

Toris glanced up. "Those rafters look pretty... unstable."

Alfred waved a hand dismissively. "Eh, they've lasted this long. If they were going to collapse they've have done it already... anyway, they're stronger than they look. Strong enough to hold a body, anyway."

"A _body_?!"

Alfred looked at him with a solemn face. "What, you haven't heard already? There was a huge scandal about it... some kid killed himself here. Hanged himself in this very room."

Toris's mouth went suddenly dry. "W-why?"

"Why'd he do it, you mean?" Alfred shrugged. "No clue. He didn't leave a note." He looked at Toris for a long time; then, his face cleared, and he clapped Toris on the back and laughed uproariously. "Maybe his ghost'll show up and you can ask him!"

"Wh-wh- that's not funny, Alfred!"

"Dude, your face though!" Alfred was still grinning as he pulled his gloves on and grabbed the bathroom cart. "See ya later, Tor!"

"See you," Toris mumbled. He'd been working custodial for a while, but this was his first day since the transfer and he hadn't quite realized that working on the same crew as Alfred meant, well, putting up with Alfred at an hour when no decent human being was awake. Maybe if he started on the bottom floor, he'd be able to avoid that abominable _perkiness_ until he'd woken up a little...

With a groan, Toris slipped an elastic off his wrist and tied his hair back, running his fingers through his bangs in a futile attempt to get them into the ponytail, or at least out of his eyes. He needed a haircut desperately, he thought, but he couldn't afford to get it done professionally and there was _no way_ he was letting Alfred anywhere near his hair with scissors. Hopefully by Thanksgiving he'd have something figured out - he didn't need to give his parents any more ammunition.

And with that doleful thought, he wheeled the garbage can into the elevator.

The bottom floor was mostly classrooms, which unfortunately meant whiteboards too. Toris disliked doing whiteboards. And they really needed to just ban red markers entirely, he decided, as he scrubbed savagely at the pink ghosting that appeared to be spawning directly onto his rag without actually coming off the board. He could still read words where light was hitting the polish.

"You missed some. Up there, in the corner."

"Thanks," said Toris without thinking; then he registered the unfamiliar voice and whipped around. The boy perched on a desk behind him regarded him with amusement, chin propped on a slender hand.

The conspicuous lack of any form of identification meant this person was not a custodian.

"How'd you get in here?" Toris accused, reaching for the basket on the garbage can before remembering that Alfred had the cell phone. The boy waved his hand carelessly with a dismissive flick of the wrist.

"I live here, duh."

Toris stared. The boy grinned, jumped off the desk, and strode forward, holding out a hand.

"My name's Feliks!" he chirped.

Toris looked down at the offered hand. He could see the floor through it.

"You're Toris, right? I heard Alfred talking to you." Feliks winked. "He told you about me, remember?"

"Alfred didn't tell me about any weirdo who 'lives' in this building. All he did was show me around and try to scare me with tall tales about ghosts- oh."

Feliks looked at him expectantly.

"Y-you're the... ghost?" Toris said faintly.

"Dingdingding! We have a winner~"

Toris felt his knees buckle underneath him.

"H-hey! Don't faint on me! Geez!"

With a groan, Toris sank into a crouch and put his head on his knees.

"I need to start drinking coffee in the morning," he muttered. "I'm still dreaming. Obviously. Why didn't I take that cafeteria job? I'm no good this early..."

"No one could dream _this_ up," said Feliks confidently, and despite himself, Toris asked:

"Dream what up?"

Feliks ran a hand down his (non-existent) curves and winked. "This fabulousness, baby."

Toris groaned again and put his head back on his knees.

"Seriously, though," said Feliks, "I'm as real as you are. Maybe not as cor- corp-"

"Corporeal?"

"Yeah, that. But I'm not a hallucination or whatever."

"Isn't that _exactly_ what a hallucination would say?" Toris grumbled into his legs.

"I dunno," Feliks said cheerfully. "I've never had one."

"Tor? You okay?"

Toris's head jerked up. Alfred was hanging in the doorway with a concerned expression; Toris opened his mouth, then glanced at Feliks.

"He can't see me," Feliks said, with a hint of bitterness in his voice. So Toris plastered a smile on and said:

"I'm fine. Just taking a quick break."

"Huh," said Alfred. "Well, if you need anything, I'll be on third vacuuming."

"Okay."

Alfred left.

Toris turned back to Feliks and stared at him speculatively.

"What? Did I, like, grow an extra head or something?"

"Can you pick things up?"

"Yeah, why?"

Toris shoved a rag into Feliks's hands and gestured at the whiteboard. "Make yourself useful and finish while I straighten the chairs."

"Wha-"

"We'll talk _after_ my shift is over. I've wasted enough time as it is."

* * *

Ghosts, it turned out, were not good at cleaning. Or maybe it was just Feliks. Still, it was nice to have company in the mornings. Feliks talked a lot, but he wasn't _loud_ like Alfred, and he was careful to shut up if someone was coming, because, in his words, "If someone sees you talking to yourself, they'll, like, decide you're crazy or something and then you'd probably have to go away."

"You're pretty lonely here, aren't you?" Toris guessed. Feliks's look was wistful.

"Yeah. It's worse 'cause there's _so many_ people that come through here, but none of them can see me or hear me and it's, like... it's rough."

"I'm sorry."

Feliks shrugged. "'S okay. You're here now, right?" His smile was blindingly bright. Toris smiled back.

"Right."

"There's still pencil streaks on that desk."

Toris sprayed his rag again with a sigh.

"Are all college students this messy?" he complained. "I'm pretty sure I'm not this messy."

"I was," said Feliks without shame. "I'm sure the custodians hated me." Darkness crossed his face, rapidly fading back into the contented smirk that was his default expression. "Just about everybody hated me, really, so I didn't notice too much. I, like, had bigger things to worry about."

"Oh." Toris shifted uncomfortably. "I'm, uh... I'm sorry."

"Eh. Water under the bridge, you know?" But his fingers were idly tracing the red, welted scar that circled his throat, and his cat-like eyes were narrowed. Toris looked away. Despite Alfred's teasing, he hadn't ever asked Feliks about the circumstances surrounding his death. Something seemed horribly impolite about the idea, and he didn't want to make Feliks uncomfortable. People who felt uncomfortable tended to pull back, in his experience.

"I'm going to go get the vacuum," he said aloud. "Are you coming?"

"Not like I've got anything else to do. This place is _booo-ring_."

"It is, a bit," Toris agreed. The vacuum closet was on the ground floor, right under the stairs, so he figured he would start with the rug there and work his way down the hallway.

" _You're_ boring," Feliks complained. "At least go in, like, a circle or something."

"It's not boring, it's efficiency," Toris argued, and was about to say more when a burst of light, mocking feminine laughter rang out. Toris stiffened.

"Talking to yourself, Laurinaitis?"

Toris closed his eyes for a moment before turning around with a forced smile. "Good morning, Natalya."

The girl leaned over the banister with her dark eyes glittering.

"I always thought you were crazy, but this is a new low for you. Is the _stress_ getting to you again?"

Toris's expression did not change. "I didn't realize you still cared."

"I don't," was the reply. "I just want to make sure you don't ruin some other girl's life."

Toris took a deep breath, let it out, and turned away.

"What, you don't even have anything to say anymore? What a nice change!"

He pulled the vacuum into the nearest classroom and closed the door firmly.

"Who was that?" Feliks hissed, and Toris let himself slump against the wall and let out a heavy sigh.

"Ex-girlfriend," he muttered.

"I don't like her," said Feliks bluntly.

"She's... a nice girl. Really. Deep down." _Very_ deep down, those last few weeks. His fingers still ached sometimes when it was humid. "She just... hates me now. Just a little. I- I'm not sure why."

"She doesn't deserve you. I hope she cried her eyes out every night after the break-up." Feliks's voice was full of venom, and Toris blinked in surprise.

"Feliks, it's okay. Really. I'm over her."

"Hmph."

For a moment, Toris debated telling Feliks the exact details of the breakup. He knew very well why Natalya hated him, but... well, he was better now, and it really had nothing to do with his friend. And he didn't want _Feliks_ to decide he was too high-maintenance, too. On the other hand-

Oh. Feliks was gone.

Toris sighed again and plugged the vacuum in.

Then a shrill scream ripped through the air, and he dropped the handle to fumble with the door, yanked it open-

"Natasha - oh no -"

Natalya lay crumpled at the base of the stairs, her breath harsh and ragged with quiet sobs.

He almost slipped, sprinting over to her.

"My leg," she whimpered.

"S-sh, it's gonna be okay-" Toris glanced down at where her skirts were tangled around her hips, revealing bloodied shards of bone jutting out of the skin of her calf. He swallowed hard. "Don't move, okay, Natasha? We're going to wait for Alfred, and once he gets here we'll call an ambulance to come get you, okay?"

She nodded weakly and gripped his arm until the skin turned white. Her face was streaked with tears.

"I-ivan... I w-want Ivan..."

"Ivan's her brother, right?" came Alfred's voice, quiet for once. He crouched next to them and showed Natalya the cellphone. "It's okay, sweetheart. We'll call him right away, we just need to call 911 first... Hello, I need an ambulance at the Walker building..."

* * *

Natalya was in the hospital for a while, and Toris gritted his teeth, sat down with his budget, and rearranged things. The phone was a second-hand flip model with no data plan and almost no minutes, but it would do for emergencies. Alfred's number went in first, followed by Kiku, Herakles, and his boss. He hesitated for a while before adding any of his family's numbers, but in the end he texted his new number to Eduard, with the instruction to share it with anyone who might need it. Then he sat for a while staring at the phone and realizing that he didn't have anyone else to add.

The thought was slightly depressing.

"Apparently, I can't get anyone _alive_ to pay attention to me," he told Feliks glumly while he swept the second-floor women's bathroom. "It's not like I want to be the most popular guy on campus or anything, but being able to hang out with someone who's not my roommate would be nice. Maybe even a girl... I haven't been on a single date since Natasha and I broke up. Speaking of which - she's going home day after tomorrow. They managed to piece the bone back together enough that she'll be able to walk again." He sighed. "I'm glad. It would have been horrible if- if something had happened."

Feliks snorted. "I can't believe, after everything she's done to you, that you still care about her."

"I _don't_. I've been over her for ages, Feliks. It's just... she was hurt really badly, her leg was absolutely shattered. I don't think anyone deserves that."

Feliks clearly didn't agree, from the way his arms were folded, but Toris turned away from him to put the broom back, so he humphed and stopped muttering. In the silence that followed, Toris became aware of a gentle buzzing sound coming from underneath one of the rags on the cart.

"Is that a bug?" Feliks asked, wrinkling his nose.

It was not a bug; it was his new phone, informing him that _a new picture message has been received!_ Toris pushed his goggles up over his bangs and squinted at the screen.

The picture was of a blond boy, making a face, with the caption _I hate snow_. Toris laughed, imagining the dry, cold Idaho winter that had probably prompted the message; Feliks snatched the phone out of his hands to look.

"Who's this?"

He sounded a little suspicious, and Toris laughed harder.

"My little brother," he told him, and took the phone back. "Here, let me- do ghosts show up in photos?"

"I don't _think_ so."

"Move back a bit, just in case." He made his own face at the camera, sent it, and followed it with _I hate getting up early_.

"Who doesn't, that's what I'd like to know," Feliks grumbled. "Back when I was alive, you had to, like, use a crowbar to get me out of bed before ten."

"Which would be why this job actually pays semi-decent wages," Toris said drily. "Believe me, if this wasn't paying my rent I wouldn't be here."

"So are you going to quit eventually?"

"If I can find a better job? Yes." Toris glanced at Feliks's face and added hastily, "But that won't be for a long time, probably."

When he got home that night, the phone wouldn't turn on no matter what he did.

"Why is everything I own crap?" he groaned. Alfred flicked his ear.

"Shouldn't've got it second-hand, huh?"

Toris kicked him.

* * *

Thanksgiving came and went, and it was awful. That was the extent of what Toris told anyone when he got back. He was dreading Christmas break. Maybe he could get conveniently sick with something he didn't want to give to his brother?

And then one day he got a letter. He looked at it for a long time, ripped it up, and threw it away. Then he went to bed, without a word to anyone, and went to work the next morning apparently determined to make the entire building shinier than Alfred's teeth.

"Are you okay, Liet?" Feliks said tentatively.

Toris slammed his rag against the sink so violently that the ghost jumped, and said through gritted teeth, "I'm _fine_."

"No you're not."

Toris raised his head. His hand was still moving back and forth on the porcelain. Maybe if he scrubbed hard enough it would stop him from crying.

"I..."

Feliks waited patiently.

"My application... I..."

"What happened, Liet?" Feliks said quietly, and Toris burst out:

"I lost my scholarship, okay?"

"Oh, _Liet._ "

The rag fell from his hand, and then, finally, he cried, sinking to his knees on the bathroom floor and sobbing like a child. He was so _weak_. He knew he shouldn't be doing this, knew Feliks was going to realize now what a mistake he'd made becoming friends with Toris. But he couldn't stop, not now that the dam had finally broken, and as he felt ghostly arms surround him, he started to gasp out everything he'd been holding in for the past year. The insecurity, the tears of frustration, the nights of homework so late that he came to work on a half-hour of sleep, the exhausted haze that just made understanding harder, and over it all his father pushing him harder and harder and harder to be someone they both knew he couldn't be.

And Feliks listened.

He listened without speaking, just held Toris gently and smoothed down his hair and pressed his lips against Toris's forehead.

"I'll never be good enough for him," Toris whispered, and that set off the sobbing again. His eyes felt raw already, but he couldn't stop. The tears were sticky on his face. "Not like Ed is. Ed's the one he likes, he's the one who's got a _useful_ major at a _good_ university, he's the _smart_ one... he gets every scholarship he applies for - like he needs them! 'Maybe I'd pay for your tuition too, Toris, if you were doing something _productive_ with your life! Why can't you be more like your brother? Why can't you make me proud of you like I am of him?' " He took a quick, ragged breath, and buried his face in Feliks's chest. "I hate him," he whispered, and something in his stomach wrenched at him with the confession.

"It's okay, Liet."

Feliks's expression was uncharacteristically serious.

"It's okay. There's nothing wrong with being jealous."

"But..."

"You know what your problem is, Liet? You're too nice. You never tell anyone how you feel because you don't want to bother them... and now you won't even let yourself hurt or be sad or angry at all. Look at me, Liet." His green-gold eyes shone. "Your family's screwed you over big-time. It's okay to be mad about it. Your dad's choosing your brother over you. It's okay to be jealous of him. And you've just lost your tuition. You're scared and you don't know what to do. _It's okay to cry_."

And finally, he said it.

" _If I cry, people hate me!"_

Feliks froze.

"Oh, _Liet_ ," he said again.

Toris gripped Feliks's shoulders tightly, as if they were the only thing keeping him upright. Perhaps they were. His head hurt and his face felt hot and blotched, and Feliks wasn't leaving, wasn't telling him to shut up and stop dumping his problems on other people and he _wasn't leaving_.

"I'm sorry," he choked out.

"I'm not ever gonna hate you, understand?" Feliks said softly.

Toris nodded. He couldn't trust himself to speak anymore.

Feliks ran a cold hand down his cheek. "You're a million times better than any brother of yours," he said fiercely, "and your dad's an idiot for not seeing that."

His fingers were freezing as he laced them into Toris's. It felt so _wonderful_.

* * *

Toris did not break down again, but he did work up the nerve to talk to his housemates about the situation. He regretted it almost immediately. In the end, even quiet Kiku took a side in the massive fight over Alfred's _thirty-ways-to-lower-the-amount-of-rent-Toris-has-to-pay_ plan - Toris appreciated the gesture, but seventeen of Alfred's ideas were just plain stupid, twelve were actually illegal, and the thirtieth relied on such an insane amount of dumb luck it was basically unworkable. Not to mention how guilty he would feel about his housemates trying to pick up his slack when they were all struggling too. Feliks didn't understand this part.

"They're offering, so take it!"

"I _can't_ ," Toris said again, from underneath the table where he was scraping gum. "It's not- not _right_." He tried to think of a way to put it that his unabashedly self-centered friend would understand. "I'm not desperate enough yet to take that kind of charity, Feliks." That made it sound like a pride thing, which it wasn't, really - probably - but it seemed to make enough sense to Feliks that he stopped pressing the issue.

"It's crescent moon soon," he said instead, with smug glee in his voice.

"Why is that - _eurgh, gross_ \- why's that important?"

" _Ewwww._ People are dumb... Anyway, at crescent moon, I can actually get out of this place for a little bit. Something about borders between worlds, yada yada, I don't really get it... but I get to go outside as long as the moon's up. It's nice."

Toris pulled himself out and smiled, plastering his bangs back. "So what, you're gonna follow me all day instead of just all morning? Harsh."

"Well, I'm your best friend, right? We should totally do something together!"

Toris stopped short, brow wrinkling.

"Best... friend?"

Feliks sat carefully on the now-clean table. He looked anxious. "I am, right?"

"I guess... I never thought about it." Toris murmured. "But... I mean, I guess the post is open? I don't really have too many friends these days..."

"Awesome!" Feliks cheered. "I mean, that I'm your best friend, like, officially now. Not awesome that you didn't have any other friends. That sucks. But now you've got me, so you don't need 'em!"

There was something wrong about that sentence, but it took Toris a minute to work out what it was.

"Feliks, that's not how friends work. You know that, right?"

Feliks's eyes were gleaming, his face full of emotions Toris couldn't read. "What are you talking about, Liet? One friend is all you need! That's how me and Erszi were, back when I was alive." He paused. "Well, how we used to be, anyway. Then she started fooling around with Roderich and that absolute-" he said a word in Polish that Toris was glad he couldn't understand- "Gilbert, and then she didn't want to hang out with me anymore."

Toris winced. "I'm sorry. I know how rough that must have been."

Feliks sighed pensively. "It would've been better, maybe, if she'd just, like, dropped me completely, y'know? But she still acted like she liked me, even though she was spending so much more time with them, and- it hurt. It hurt a lot. That's why-" He checked himself suddenly, but Toris could fill in the blank, and he leaned over and pulled Feliks into a sympathetic hug. Feliks muttered something into his shoulder that Toris couldn't quite hear, then raised his head with a bright, rather forced smile. "Anyway. That's all in the past now, they've been dead for like twenty years now. And _you_ aren't gonna do that to me, right, Toris?"

"Of course not," Toris told him warmly.

Feliks grinned and nuzzled him like a cat.

It was adorable.

* * *

When Eduard called, Toris was contemplating the merits of trying to completely rewrite his American Heritage essay in the six hours before it was due.

"Is this important, Ed? I'm kind of in the middle of something-"

"I know, but I figured you ought to know right away - he's finally out of critical!"

"What are you talking about?"

There was a long, long silence. Then Eduard said slowly, "You did know Raivis is in the hospital, didn't you?"

" _WHAT?!"_

"No one told you? How- damn it, I knew I should have called when I thought about it, I just assumed-"

"Eduard, what _happened_?"

Eduard took a deep breath. "Raivis was hit by a car a couple of days ago. He's been in urgent care until this morning."

Toris's face went white.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" he whispered.

"We've all been so worried, I guess we all just thought someone else had taken care of it? I'm so sorry, Toris, I swear I would've-"

"That doesn't matter now. Is he going to be alright?"

Another pause. "...yes."

 _"Tell. Me."_

"There was... some neurological damage," Eduard said reluctantly. "He'll have muscle spasms for the rest of his life, probably. But he's alive, and he's handling it pretty well, all things considered."

Toris gripped the phone hard,feeling tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry-

"He misses you," Eduard added.

Toris hung up abruptly. Thankfully none of his roommates were home to hear him screaming into his pillow as if the world was ending.

(He told Feliks, of course. He told him everything these days, and every time Feliks listened to him a little burst of happiness flooded through him. But there was something strange in his friend's face when Toris told him that his brother was going to be okay - an expression Toris couldn't place but wasn't sure he liked.

"What do you mean, Raivis?" Feliks said, and Toris responded, _my brother_ , and then- "I thought your brother's name was Ed."

"Raivis is the youngest. Eduard is two years older than him."

-and Feliks looked _horrified_ for a second before grinning again and saying that well then congratulations to _Raivis_ , whom Toris like totally was the best big brother to ever and wasn't jealous of at all and oh, it's about time for you to start doing wood polish isn't it I'll go now you know I hate the smell. And Toris _wondered_.)

* * *

"Christmas break tomorrow!" Alfred said cheerfully, and Toris groaned and threw a rag at him.

"Tomorrow. Not now. Get to work, you lazy butt."

"Scrooge!" Alfred shouted after him. Toris shook his head.

"You're leaving?" Feliks said from behind him. His voice sounded oddly subdued.

"Just for a week. It's no longer than Thanksgiving break was."

Feliks stared at the ground.

"Hey. Hey, sweetie, I know you'll be lonely, but-"

"Please don't go," Feliks whispered.

Hesitantly, Toris put a hand on Feliks's shoulder.

"Thanksgiving was different," said Feliks, taking a step forward, until their bodies touched, and Toris could have rested his chin on the blond head. "It was _so different_ and..."

"What do you mean, Feliks?" Toris kept his tone soft, kind, comforting. "How was it different?"

" _I didn't love you then_ ," Feliks said in a low voice. "But it's different now."

 _Oh, Feliks. Oh, sweetheart._ Toris felt his heart sink.

"I love you, Toris."

"F-feliks... I-"

Feliks wrapped his arms around Toris's shoulders and pressed his face into Toris's chest and said in a muffled voice:

"I love you and I don't want you to ever go away and you- you like me, don't you? I know you like me..."

His voice cracked. It sounded suspiciously like a sob.

Toris sank to the ground, clutching the other boy and stroking his blond hair gently. "I do like you, Feliks. I like you a lot. You're my best friend, remember?" Feliks shook his head, his nose rubbing against the coarse fabric of Toris's shirt.

"I _love_ you, Liet," he choked out. "I want us to be together forever and ever and ever!"

"We can't," Toris whispered. "I'm sorry, Feliks. Because- because in the end... I'm alive. And you're not."

Feliks gripped him tightly and said nothing, his ghostly shoulders convulsing with silent tears. So Toris knelt on the cold tiles of the Atrium and held him, until finally, Feliks pulled back a little and muttered, "Will you- I- kiss me, Liet?"

He did. It was quick and gentle and chaste, and he felt guilty that there was no love in it, but Feliks sat a bit straighter and scrubbed his face, and his voice was small but firm as he said:

"You're right, huh? It wouldn't work out properly unless you were a ghost too."

"I'm sorry, Feliks," was all Toris could think to say, and Feliks shook his head again, this time with a tiny, tiny smile.

"I can wait."

He faded from view then, leaving Toris still on the floor, and he didn't come again that day.

* * *

Toris did go back for Christmas, and Raivis's face lit up so much to see him that he was glad he'd agreed to go. It almost made up for the awkwardness - Eduard hugged him once, stiffly, and then retreated to a corner to do... things... on his laptop. His father laid into him about his hair. Again. Meanwhile, his mother appeared to be pretending Toris didn't exist. (Personally, Toris was fine with that. It meant he didn't have to talk to her.) But Raivis wheeled himself enthusiastically over and raised his trembling arms for a hug and stuttered his way through a long, confused story about the surprise party his friends had held to celebrate his return from the hospital and pushed a clumsily-wrapped box into his hands.

"Ed wanted to g-get you sweaters, b-but I b-bet you have enough of those already, right? So I b-bought you some stuff that's p-pretty and useless."

"Thanks, Rai," he said, and meant it.

After a long, tense Christmas dinner, the obligatory fight over the radio, and a lot of forced smiles, Raivis announced that he was tired and was going to bed and no, mom, I refuse to eat any more you know I hate white meat anyway.

"T-toris? Would you help me?"

"Er- yeah."

He'd moved into Toris's old room, the one behind the first-floor bathroom. Easier to get the wheelchair into, he explained, as he got undressed with agonizing slowness while Toris stood awkwardly in the doorway.

"C-come lift me into b-bed?"

He could hear the chagrin in the boyish voice. Raivis had always been curious and active and it _hurt_ , seeing him like this, and had he always been this light? felt this frail? The pillow seemed to engulf the pale, curly hair.

"T-tor?"

He leaned over to pull the blankets up.

"What is it, Rai?"

"You'll b-believe me, won't you?"

Toris felt his brow furrow in confusion. "Believe what, Rai?"

Raivis reached up with his small, shaking hand, to pull Toris closer, and he said softly:

"Someone p-pushed me, T-tor. I felt a hand on my b-back, right when that c-car was c-coming." He searched Toris's face. "And d-don't t-tell me it was something else. I _know_ what I felt. B-but there wasn't anyone there _t-to_ p-push me, I know that t-too. There was p-plenty of light, even if the moon was only a c-crescent."

A shiver ran down Toris's back.

"A crescent moon?" he echoed. "You're sure?"

Raivis nodded. "I remember looking at it while I waited for the light t-to t-turn. It was really b-bright."

Toris took the tiny, slim hand in his own and rubbed absent circles on it with his thumb.

"I believe you, Raivis," he murmured. "And... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. This is my fault."

His brother regarded him steadily.

"No," he said, with a strange authority. "It's not."

* * *

"Ready to get back to work?"

"No," Toris said bluntly. He leaned forward and turned the heat up, hoping it would banish the chill that had settled in his spine. It didn't. Alfred frowned briefly, pulled the car into the parking lot, and turned to Toris.

"What's wrong, Tor?"

He took a deep breath, and blurted out, "Al, I don't think it's a good idea for us to split up today."

"Huh?"

"At work. We- we need to stay together. I'm worried-" and then he stopped, confused, unable to read Alfred's face, unable to make his mouth move to tell him about the vague, awful cold suspicion.

"Worried?"

Toris wrapped his arms around himself and leaned his head on the window.

"I don't... I don't want to be alone today. I can't."

"Did something happen over Christmas?"

Toris nodded.

Alfred turned the engine off with a decisive snap.

"Okay. We'll stick together if it'll make you feel better."

"Thanks." Toris knew his smile was wan, but it was genuine.

The bathrooms went quickly enough, with two people, and it was quiet enough. (Too quiet? The silence seemed to be creeping into the corners of his mind, and he _couldn't shake_ the consuming need to look behind him, above him, behind him again.)

"Is it just me," Alfred complained, the snapping of the garbage bag echoing through the building like gunshots, "or has this place gotten creepier?"

"Not just you," Toris managed. Dread. That's what this feeling was. (Where was Feliks? He didn't _know_.)

The garbage sacks ran out. They stood in the study room, next to the railing that overlooked the Atrium, and Toris twisted his hands together.

"No, don't!" he pleaded. "You promised, we weren't going to split up today-"

"This isn't a horror movie, Toris," Alfred said confidently. "I'm just gonna run downstairs and grab another roll. You'll be fine for that long, I'm sure. If I'm not back in five minutes, come find me, okay?"

"Al, _please-"_

But Alfred had already darted out, and Toris stood frozen by the railing, stomach twisting and cold, counting the seconds.

oneonethousandtwoonethousandthreeonethousand

 _Please_

twotwentytwotwotwentythreetwotwentyfour

"Hey, Liet. Long time, no see."

Slowly, Toris looked up, to see Feliks sprawled on one of the support beams, looking for all the world like a cat perched on a windowsill. A rope dangled casually from his hands, and he kept running his fingers over it idly.

"Hi, Feliks," Toris murmured.

There was something cold and cruel in Feliks's expression. Had it always been there, and he'd just been too blind - too lonely - to see it?

"So, I've been thinking. About what you said the other day. And you know, you're _totally_ right." The familiar smirk curled into a beatific smile, and Toris knew then with a sudden, gutwrenching _sick_ that Alfred wasn't coming back, not in five minutes, not ever. "So I had an idea!"

He swung his legs off the beam and glided to the floor, landing right in front of Toris, who took a step back.

"Wouldn't it be _romantic_ ," he purred, "if we did it the same way?"

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Toris took another step back, but Feliks caught hold of his wrist with one hand. The other hand still fiddled with the rope as it pointed. There was a loop in the rope.

No, not a loop. A noose.

"See that one, right there?" Feliks whispered, and Toris's eyes were drawn reluctantly back to the ceiling beams. "You can just reach it if you stand on the railing. It's a bit hard to tie the rope to it by yourself, but I'll help you. It doesn't hurt that much." He laughed softly. "I'm good at knots. Your neck'll break as soon as you start falling. And then... we can be together forever and ever and ever. Won't that be wonderful?"

"I-I don't..."

"It's so quick, Liet! It's a bit scary to jump at first, but I can help you with that too- one little push is all it'll take."

The cat-like eyes gleamed. Toris wrenched his hand out of Feliks's grip.

"How did Erszi die, Feliks?" he said quietly.

Feliks blinked.

"Was it _just a little push_? Into the street like Raivis? Down the stairs like Natalya?" He backed up against the door, feeling behind him with his hand. "Or were you jealous enough to make it special?" His nails scrabbled on the wood. "And what about Roderich? Gilbert? How did you punish them for stealing her, huh?"

"Why does it matter?"

Cool brass against his palm.

"I was angry at her, yeah. But I'm not angry at you, Liet. I just want to help. You're lonely, too. This is best for both of us."

 _Slowly_. He felt the latch click, noiseless, and slowly, slowly he turned the knob.

"I love you, Toris. Don't you love me?"

Toris threw open the door and bolted.

His breath sobbed in his throat as he sprinted, his shoes skidding on the thin carpet. _How fast can Feliks move?_ He didn't know. There was _so much_ he didn't know, hadn't known, hadn't bothered to ask. _Idiot. Idiot, idiot._ But- who could blame him? Who would've really questioned it, in his place?

Feliks hadn't left him. Didn't ever want to leave him.

The thought wasn't comforting anymore.

He almost fell, a sudden jerk on his ponytail bringing him up short, and he screamed when Feliks pulled him back by his hair, slamming him up against the wall.

" _Now_ I'm angry at you." The voice was cold, as cold as the ghostly skin pressed against Toris's arms. He closed his eyes, shook his head frantically, tried to push Feliks's petite frame away from him. "Stop _moving_!"

He could feel the rope fibers against his throat. Toris sucked in air and kicked with every ounce of strength he had. He heard Feliks gasp, in pain or in outrage, felt him fly back with force of the desperate kick. He stumbled forward, opened his eyes to see the end of the hallway right in front of him.

He took the stairs three at a time. Feliks was shouting.

Around the next corner was the emergency exit, the alarm blinking, and the moon shining through it onto the floor, round and full.

He threw himself forward, grabbed the handle and _yanked-_


End file.
